HUG Corner: Thought for the Week - 2/12

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

"When we need these healing times, there is nothing better than a good long walk. It is amazing how the rhythmic movements of the feet and legs are so intimately attached to cobweb cleaners in the brain."

- Anne Wilson Schaef

"Sometimes it's the last thing in the world we feel like doing - getting out and being physically active. Aside from the effort it takes to get up and move, who cares whether we keep our body in good working order anyway?

This is one of the times when thinking has to overcome feeling. We know exercise is 'good for us.' It's hard to continue to feel depressed when muscles are working vigorously, when we are paying attention to covering ground or swimming through water. As we release physical energy in these rhythmic motions, part of the energy of grief rides away, too. Part of the psychic value of such activity, I suspect, is that we are witnessing our own competence, our ability to move rhythmically, to be 'in charge' of our bodies. Our sense of self-confidence will spread. Maybe we won't be forever captive to grief after all. They physical invigoration of exercise invigorates our spirits as well.